Many different paths to take
by LikeIdTellU
Summary: It has been over a hundred years since the Avengers died and most of the world was turned into a toxic wasteland after a nuclear war. In the Last City on Earth a shady organisation has come to a startling realization, and they have begun recruiting. Reincarnation fic.


Flint Doyle honestly couldn't say when he first noticed he was being tailed. Maybe it was when he saw the reflection of a man in a trench coat, the same man he was sure he had seen in the High Town. Or maybe it was when a bloody _car_ drove through the lower town and two expressionless men in goddamn _suits _got out and began walking behind him. Did these people think that he was stupid or something?_ No one_ wore suits in the lower town [or showed any signs of wealth at all unless they wanted to get mugged] and cars were so rare nowadays that only the really _really _rich and big nobs could afford them, much less pay for their own private oil rigs to make the stupid things go.

Flint may only be a half-caste thirteen-year-old living in what had been Kinshasa, the diplomatic republic of the Congo some hundred years ago but that didn't mean he was stupid. Just uneducated.

But even so he had no idea what to do when his shadows stopped being shadows and began to approach him. It wasn't obvious at first; Flint had been too busy pick pocketing from idiots too stupid enough to display money. _Honestly did these morons miss the memo that said this was the lower town meaning, hello mentally deficient people, that like as not you will get robbed and swindled to an inch of your life since there was no law enforcement to speak of. After all this wasn't the High Town. _But soon he had begun to notice a tall phenomenally beautiful Caucasian woman with, guess what, red hair. No one had red hair in this dump. At least she had made an effort to blend in by wearing the local clothes [re: rags] unlike the two idiots in suits flanking her.

What was unnerving though was that she was staring, at him, and had been for the past minute or so. Now this usually wouldn't have fazed Flint, but she as clearly an upper class citizen and more often than not it ended badly for you if you managed to garner their attention because, unlike a lower class citizen like Flint, they had rights.

Oh shit, he thought, oh shit oh shit oh shit.

He immediately stepped out of his spot in the shadows, allowing the crowd to sweep him along and swallow him from sight. He was pushed and shoved, the many disadvantages of being a short ass, and generally bruised but at least he was moving and out of sight, one of the advantages of being miniscule. And if Flint was correct, he usually was concerning these things, then the crowd was shoving him in the direction of the Bazaar.

Perfect, lets see if those upper class scum could tail him there. They could try, but like as not they would be murdered before they took three paces.

XXX

"You _lost _him, how could you lose him he's a fucking _boy, _Natasha, please explain how you lost him".

Natasha, formerly Tusya Boliek, stared out the tinted window of the car, back straight posture stiff, her face stern and unrelenting.

"With all due respect, sir", she said softly, her voice still tinged with the posh remnants of her former life, "This _boy _knew we were there before I noticed _he _was there. Face it Fury, your men simply do not blend in".

Fury slammed his fist down, hard. "Damn it Natasha", he snarled, "It's not about fitting in. We need to know if this". He peered at the files in his hands. "This _Flint _is him".

"There is little resemblance between them, sir, maybe we have the wrong person".

"That is the risk we have to take, Natasha, we are running out of time". Fury clenched and unclenched his hands and forced himself to breathe deeply. He could not lose control; he absolutely _refused _to lose control.

Breathe in, breathe out.

"Maybe in order to find out what we need we have to blend in, send in someone that will gain this Flint's trust", Natasha offered, "Maybe that will invoke his memories".

Fury briefly closed his eyes and slouched in his seat. He took a last deep, calming breath, sat up and opened his eyes. "We don't have time, Natasha, he has to be the one, the oracle is sure of it. If he didn't trust you then whom else will he trust? No, don't answer that. Everyone else has been found and awakened, except him. Flint Doyle has to be _him_, there is simply no more time to go looking elsewhere".

"Sir?"

"I want you to pay a visit to Flint, Natasha, take Steve with you and bring in Flint Doyle. Do whatever you have to do to succeed. That's an order".

"Yessir", Natasha murmured, a dangerous calm settling over her features.

XXX

Flint knew he was in trouble as soon as he opened the ancient wooden door to the abandoned and dilapidated apartment block that was his home. He went inside anyway, stalling only made it worse. He avoided the death trap that was the stairs, instead using the stones imbedded in the walls as handholds to climb the nearest support beam, hoisting himself up onto the sturdy pole with practised ease. From there he proceeded to climb, swing and jump his way to the top of the building where he and two others lived in the only room safe enough to live in.

Flint opened the door leading to their apartment and was immediately assaulted by the smell of booze. Great, he thought caustically, just great. Its only lunchtime and these moronic idiots are already cracking out the happy juice. Just wonderful.

And he had promised.

His brother, Kay, and Kay's boyfriend, Keith were sprawled out on a straw mattress, which happened to be the only thing remotely soft in the entire godforsaken room. They stunk to high heaven and were still coherent enough to register his entrance.

"Kay!" Flint snapped, having no sympathy for his pissed brother, "You promised that you wouldn't get drunk again! And now look at you, you over grown tub of lard. Spending the money I earn on grog when you know we need it for food".

"M'sorry", Kay mumbled before falling asleep.

Flint snarled in disgust and aimed a kick at his useless brother's side. "Gettup goddamn you".

Kay only groaned and passed wind with Keith before falling into an even deeper sleep then before.

Flint wanted to hit something, heck he _needed _to hit something, his limbs hummed with the need. First the shock of being followed and now going home to the image of his useless older brother passed out on his bed. He made his way to the pile of rags in the corner, his corner of the room. Kay had teased him about it, calling it Flint's little nest. Luckily his brother hadn't checked the nest or he might of given himself a heart attack at what his little brother had squirrelled away in the many folds of the fabrics.

Now Flint kneeled and took out the rag wrapped package, gently unwinding the gritty fabrics until his most treasured possession was revealed. A wicked bowie knife, plain but beautiful and still as sharp as the day he had stolen it. With a reverent grin he carved a target into the wall, small enough to go unnoticed by the two sots but large enough to serve its purpose.

He retreated to the opposite end of the room, drew back the knife before throwing it, tracing the knife's trajectory with his eyes.

With a _thunk_ it hit the target, dead centre.

XXX

The Last City was divided up into two parts, High Town and Lower Town. High Town was for the rich and important, they had law enforcement, enough food and clean water, houses and rights. Lower Town was its complete opposite; it was full of rapists, muggers, murderers and thieves both petty and otherwise. There was a saying, that if the High Town was paved in gold then the Lower Town was paved in the shit of its people. Even so there was a trend in the High Town to visit the lower town at least once in their lives, which was stupid. The Lower Town was dangerous, even more so during the night.

It wasn't always like this; the Last People were not always this divided; they also had not always been the last. The apocalypse [or as it is now called 'man's folly'] happened in 2012, when Syria nuked its rebels in a desperate attempt to win the war. The Powers [America, Britain, China, etc.] retaliated, and fired their own chemical weapons as a warning. Or at least that had been the plan; it was no one's fault, really, that a malfunction in the mainframe [undetected until the last minute] had caused all the nukes in the world to fire at once. Nearly all the Earth's population had been wiped out by the blast, and most countries were rendered inhospitable. Fertile land was turned into waste lands of enormous proportion; the rain was so acidic that if you stood outside in a storm your skin would be eaten. It was a wonder that anyone survived at all, but they did and they all migrated to what used to be the Congo, the only place unaffected by the radiation.

At first they all lived together, but after various civil wars and other such things the community divided. The rich banding together leaving the poor and disreputable to fend for themselves.

XXX

When asked about it later Flint couldn't say what tipped him off to the presence of Natasha and Steve. Maybe he had heard the squeak of the rotting floorboards under Steve's bulk, maybe the air shifted too noticeably when Natasha neared the bundle of rags were he lay sleeping. Or maybe it was that mystical sense his Grandma had told him about before she died, the one his people were said to possess, the one that connected him to the land. Flint thought he preferred the latter, he like the idea that his totem, the eagle, was watching over him.

Whatever the cause Flint's eyes were already opened when his fine tuned hearing picked up the whispering sound of steel. For a brief, crucial second he panicked, thinking a murderer or worse, a rapist, had broken into the apartment. But then his mind cleared and his heart slowed down, a calm that he only experienced in situations such as these washed over him. He closed his eyes, briefly while he rummaged around inside of himself to find his courage, found it and then opened his eyes. Already he was seeing the world in a different light.

When Natasha and Steve made their way to his bed, stepping over the snoring useless forms of Kay and Keith, Flint rose to meet them, bowie knife in hand.

Flint decided he should be more afraid of the sight of a blonde man-mountain and the High Town girl he had seen in the streets. But the calm presence still had not left him. His hold on the knife tightened, the blade pointed away from the intruders in the way he had been taught.

Natasha frowned then smiled. "Cute", she said in a condescending, patronising tone of voice, confident in her own abilities.

"Hey, Flint right?" Steve asks, trying for the more diplomatic approach. "Can we talk?"

"Fuck no", snarls Flint, "Get the hell out of my house. Scratch that, tell me why you're trailing me and then get the fuck out".

"We work for an organisation called SHEILD and, Flint Doyle, we would like you to join".

"What if I don't want to join?" Flint spat, "Cause I have no intention of joining your little batshit agency".

Natasha smiled, or more like baring her lips to show teeth, a dangerous gleam settling in her eyes. "I think you've misunderstood us", she said, "That wasn't a question".

TBC

Id love reviews, I really would.


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